Scarecrow was on his way home from his weekly PTSD group therapy session when he saw the lights flashing and the siren sound.

The cop that pulled him over was the homeliest female Scarecrow had ever seen. She looked like she’d have 5 o’clock shadow at noon. Her eyes were both the same shape (round) and color (brown), but only the one eyeball seemed to track Scarecrow. And the police officer did not say anything. She just stood there with her hand on the butt of her Gloch and stared hard.

“Did I do something wrong, officer?” he asked her. She responded by tugging the gun free from its hip holster with one fluid motion and shooting Scarecrow between his shirt-button eyes.

A mushroom cloud of wet straw erupted from the right side of Scarecrow’s stuffed head and splattered the passenger door window, sticking there.

With a wicked smirk she insisted to the deader n dog-dirt Scarecrow: “There is no God but Allah…”

A Few Years Back:

The Apache swooped down to the Afghani poppy fields. Scarecrow saw women and children scraping ooze from the round orbs.

Scarecrow considered his Lt. with a sneer. They both knew the score. But following orders is the soul of soldiering, so they finished the sweep of the adjacent valley. Finding nothing of interest the Apache banked a turn, heading back from whence they came. The soldiers inside began to lock n load as the bird evened out.

The pilot waited for the Lt. to give the go ahead. She hit ‘play’, getting low enough to finger a gopher’s asshole. Their war-song, ‘Drowning Pool’s”: ‘Bodies’ filled the valley, loud enough to rattle Scarecrow’s popcorn kernel dental work. The music was supposed to stop the enemy with a demon’s dread, but mostly it was just good mood-music for combat.

Scarecrow primed himself at the edge of the copter, leaning out a touch, surveying the fast moving ground for Bad Guy. The Apache’s gas-propelled Harvester armaments were hot and trained for a strafing run. They flew over the poppy fields and all the dead women and children. They lay broken upon the rocks, their red life blackening and caking beneath a quiet, careless sun.

Scarecrow nodded. His strong bull’s heart hammered soundly in his straw-filled chest. His hands steadied, his vision narrowed and he saw Bad Guy.

The Apache, still low, came quickly upon three running for the hills. Suddenly, the cheekiest of the three monkeys turned. He hurled religious insults, racial slurs and a sturdy stream of bullets from his garage-sale AK-47.

The Harvester launched a chewing thresher at him. It shredded Bad Guy like so much newsprint. The kibbles & bits & bits blew out and up and floated in the hot, still air. It hung there for a moment before becoming a fleshy, soggy wet ticker-tape parade.

They dropped their weapons and raised hands high in surrender. Scarecrow stepped off the lander. His palms were forward in a ‘no harm’ gesture. Scarecrow smiled his most charming smile. A rusty chain slinked out behind him. The two captives smiled nervously as the straw-man neared. He unsheathed a miniature sickle. It had a wicked concaved curve. Strong, multi-folded layers of steel enabled the sickle to puncture a car door and skin grapes. There was a hole in the center of the handle.

Scarecrow freed it from the scabbard on his back. It whistled in a sharp upward arc, stopping only when it bit and stuck in the hard boned ribcage. Bad Guy’s countenance turned to alabaster.

Scarecrow clipped the chain’s hooked end securely to the eye-hole of the sickle. The man toppled to the dirt.

The Apache rose, dragging him. He seemed to be re-animated as he was borne up until there was an inch or two of air below his tippy-toes. The Apache hovered there as the soldiers had them a spate of crossbow practice.

The remaining prisoner was shaking uncontrollably as Scarecrow approached him.

The prisoner shook his head in denial. But Scarecrow knew that wasn’t just English, but in fact, American English so he grabbed the prisoner’s scrotum and tugged.

“Fuck!” spat the faux Afghani in perfect American.

“Try again,” encouraged Scarecrow.

“Liberty,” he stammered, “Kansas.”

“A very long way from Auntie Em’s farm,” noted Scarecrow. “So, what’s a corn-fed Midwesterner doing in this god-forsaken pile of rubble?”

“There is no God but Allah,” the prisoner began.

Scarecrow finished: “And Mohammed is His prophet. Yeah, I got it, I got it. But did either give you leave to slaughter those innocents?”

“Th- th-“

Scarecrow stuck his sidearm into the prisoner’s eyeball, popping the lens out. Bad Guy began to scream, so Scarecrow simply grunted a quick tug and the prisoner’s reproductive system came free as a whole. Just like scooped-out catfish guts.

The prisoner was unconscious as Scarecrow rifled his pockets and found an expired driver’s license. The prisoner was actually a Dorie Gale, from Liberal, Kansas. The photo beheld a cleaner cut version of the dying man.

Scarecrow unhooked the human piñata. He was left to rest in peace and fuck bloody all those promised virgins waiting anxiously in the Virgin Promised Land.

Scare crow rode the chain back up to the awaiting Apache.

Return To Now:

The cop finished the mantra: “And Muhammed is His prophet, peace be unto him.” She holstered her weapon and retrieved the spent shell which had skittered and spun to a stop nearby.

Sgt. Dorothy Gail absently scratched at where her reproductive organs used to be. She leaned down into Scarecrow’s car window, staring at his dead face. Mice began evacuating the driver’s body, pulling some straw stuffing out as they egressed.

And in a mock whimpering pout, Dorothy told Scarecrow: “And I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

END

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